Davide not for special elections

Cebu Gov. Hilario Davide does not support the suggestion of the Department of Interior and Local Governance (DILG) to hold a special election for barangays which have vacant electoral positions, particularly in Sangguniang Kabataan (SK).

"We leave that to the position of the Comelec. My position is there's no need," said Cebu Govenor Hilario Davide III.

He continued that conducting special elections would entail cost on the part of the government.

In the SK, there are eight electoral positions, one is for the chairman and the other seven are for SK members.

In Cebu, there are barangays where there are fewer than seven candidates for the SK member position while there are SK chairman candidates who are unopposed.

There is also a possibility that some of the aspirants will be disqualified due to record discrepancies in their Certificates of Candidacy (COC).

There are at least 267 aspirants who are recommended for disqualification because they tampered with their birthdays or are underage, overage, unregistered, or deactivated voters.

Cebu Provincial Election Supervisor Atty. Lionel Castillano said that their office cannot point out yet which barangays in Cebu Province, Cebu City and Lapu-Lapu City that will have vacant positions.

He said that he will leave the decision to the Comelec but, personally, he said that a special election is not preferable for it will entail cost and time.

This is also an additional load especially that the commission would need to prepare for the mid-term election next year.

He further explained that under the SK Reform Law, it will be the mayor or the DILG who will have to appoint someone to assume the functions of the vacant positions.

In the national level, it was DILG Assistant Secretary and Spokesperson Jonathan Malaya who presented the three solutions which their agency is eyeing to undertake in the event there is high number of unfilled seats in the SK.

Of the three, conducting a special election is the method which Malaya prefers the most.

He expressed that their office does not have a problem with the barangay polls, only with SK and this is the first time they encountered such problem.

Davide pointed out two reasons for this. The first is disinterest of the youth to join the government and second is the effect of the anti-political dynasty provision.

The governor explained that some barangays have low population and the people who live in the same barangay are related either by consanguinity or affinity.

Castillano agrees with Davide.